Avalanche

“Avalanche!”

It was the word I heard when I suddenly woke up from a deep sleep at 3 am. 
I don’t live in Colorado, so I was pretty sure it wasn’t my neighbor shouting the warning of impending doom. 

I mentioned it was 3 am and for me that was a big clue. Over the past several years, God has awakened me at 3 am to download or deal with me on something. It’s a common practice when my eyes open at 3 am (and I can’t go back to sleep right away) to say, “Speak Lord, I’m listening” or “Lord, if this isn’t you, help me go back to sleep!”

This time, I didn’t need to ask. I sat straight up, got my bearings-
Avalanche isn’t in the Bible, so there’s no looking up scripture first. My next “go-to” is the dictionary. (word-nerd alert) And after taking my regular stroll down my favorite research paths, God used a phrase to capture His message for me. “A snowpack will fail when the load exceeds its strength.”

God knew I had felt “overloaded” lately; a book release, skin cancer diagnosis with 4 reconstructive surgeries, Covid over Christmas, my mom dying… 

I read on- “The smallest vibration combined with the heavy weight can bring everything crashing down.”

It didn’t seem to me like I was just reading a definition. It felt like a Holy Spirit warning, but I thought the avalanche had already occurred. Unfortunately, what was to come was more than I could’ve imagined would happen in such a short time. The vibration that brought it all down?
A tragic pastor-on-call visit involving the death of an infant.

And then the collapse:

Miscommunication with loved ones. My sweetheart ended up in the ER. So busy no time for friends. My oven stopped working. I hit a huge plateau in my weight loss journey. I needed to visit ill family members in Florida. Taxes were due. Work felt heavy. Everything felt hard. Old tapes of no self-worth and beating myself up started playing in my head. I had a breast cancer scare that required a biopsy. At the same time, I was given a diagnosis of a serious health condition by another doctor. (Later determined to be nothing but I didn’t know that at the time!) And then, my sister died 6 months after my mom.

Every day I felt I was being buried alive. I cried out to the Lord to save me and in my weak and weary moments I told God, “I can’t do this! I never want to feel this way again, Lord.” His kind reply, “Strengthen your faith structure and set strategic explosions.”

Strengthen your faith: My “even if” faith had to become an “even when” faith… again. It wasn’t about hypotheticals anymore. The “even whens” were happening and I had to ask myself again, Do I really believe what I say I do? I had to find a new level of strength I hadn’t needed before. And of course, the only source of strength is God, Himself; “Do not fear for I am with you; do not be dismayed for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10. And with that right hand I felt God lift me out of the drift just as surely as Jesus pulled Peter up from the deep waters.

Set strategic explosions: Often when an avalanche is looming the experts will set an explosion, so it is a “controlled collapse.” I asked God to search me and blow up whatever was weakening my faith structure and what He desired to do in me and through me. 

I needed to blow up my calendar to strengthen rest and effectiveness.

I needed to blow up expectations of myself and others to strengthen my relationships.

I needed to blow up those old Satan-lying tapes to strengthen my identity and purpose.

Please don’t wait until a tremor triggers an avalanche! Strengthen yourself daily in the Lord and invite Him to blow up what threatens that strength!